


Smiling Next To You

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-22
Updated: 2007-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And they leave. Coda to "Heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiling Next To You

Away from the sun, away from the ocean, toward the mountains. The shadows are long and the roads are crowded, choked with city traffic escaping a city weekend, and they'll be out of California in a couple of hours.

Dean leaves the radio off and rolls the window down. Deafening wind fills the car, stings his eyes and roars in his ears, and the smog and exhaust taste sour.

He glances across the car. Sam is slumped in the seat with his head back, his eyes closed, scratches red and angry on his cheek. He could almost be asleep, any other day, any other life, silent and perfectly still, but his hands are clenched on his thighs and his voice is hoarse when he says, "Don't."

Eyes back to the road, pang of guilt rippling through his gut, and Dean clears his throat. "Don't what?"

"Don't stare at me."

Sam's eyes are still closed; he hasn't opened them since they left the city. He barely raises his voice, the words murmuring and slurred, but Dean has no trouble hearing.

~

Dean took the gun from Sam and tucked it into his waistband. He went through each room: bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, cleaned up blood, picked up condoms. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and ran it over every surface in the apartment, every doorknob and every table, the remote control and mugs in the sink, picture frames and spines of books, wiping away their fingerprints, erasing them, erasing Sam, from her life.

When there was nothing left, nothing more for him to do, he stopped in the doorway and waited.

"Do we just--"

Sam was on the floor beside her, close but not touching, just inches from the pool of blood staining the hardwood. He looked up, his face pale and streaked with drying tears.

"Do we just leave her?"

By himself, Dean would have burned her. Rolled her into a blanket, tossed her into the car, found a nowhere place outside the city and poured lighter fluid over her body until the fumes made him dizzy, dropped a match and stood thirty feet away while acrid black smoke filled the air. No sense taking chances, leaving things unfinished.

Dean opened his mouth to tell Sam _no, we can't, this is what we have to do_, but the words turned to ash in his throat.

"We leave her," Sam said, and it was a decision rather than a question. His eyes were too bright, too wide, and for a moment he was all of eight years old, crouched over a black-eyed deer Dad had hit with the car one hot summer night, begging them to call a vet even though it was too late. "We can't -- she has family. They should know -- they shouldn't have to wonder, they shouldn't have to hope--"

"Okay." Dean nodded and didn't let himself look away. "Okay, Sammy. That's what we'll do."

~

It starts snowing as they pass through Soda Springs. March in the fucking Sierras, big wet flakes fill the air and morons with ski racks on their SUVs slow to a crawl. Dean curses, downshifts, sits forward. When he sees the signs for the rest area he switches lanes and pulls off.

"You want me to drive?" Sam's voice is still too rough, still too quiet, but he sits up and rubs his face, wincing when he accidentally brushes the scratches.

"Nah." Dean angles the car into a parking spot and cuts the engine. "Just gotta take a leak."

The snow is sticking and Dean's boots slip on the path. There's a trucker smoking outside the door of the bathroom; he nods at Dean in that way of anonymous strangers, drops his cigarette on the ground and crushes it with his boot.

Dean doesn't have to pee. Inside the bathroom he stands in front of the sink and splashes cold water on his face, jamming the button down again when the faucet switches off. He runs his hands over his hair, shivers as the droplets trickle down his neck, stares at the cracks between the grimy tiles rather than meeting his own eyes in the mirror.

"Fucking coward." He mutters under his breath, but it's loud enough. Dean dries his hands on his jeans and slams the door open on his way out.

The snow's coming down harder but Sam is standing outside the car, shoulders hunched in his jacket and hands tucked in his pockets. Cold gray spring in the city, hushed winter in the mountains, and Dean thinks they should have gone south. Desert, L.A., Hollywood, bright lights and background noise, anywhere other than these mountains filling up with silence.

Sam is staring upward, toward the streetlights around the parking lot, and his hair is spotted with fat flakes. Dean walks over slowly, scuffs his boots purposefully on the asphalt, doesn't say anything as he leans against the car beside Sam.

He doesn't know how long they stand there. Long enough that he starts to feel the cold, long enough that he's turning over things to say in his mind, stupid platitudes and dumbass reassurances, worthless nonsense that won't do Sam the slightest bit of good but Dean thinks he ought to say anyway. He's no good at this shit, never has been. He's good at being an ass and cracking a joke, good at loading a gun and pulling a trigger, but he's no good at saying what Sammy needs to hear.

But it's Sam who speaks first. "You know."

Dean tilts his head, looks up at Sam and waits.

"Sometimes."

Sam pauses, clears his throat, silent for a heartbeat, and in that moment Dean watches him swallow down his tears, knows a door is slamming shut and a lock is turning, and he thinks it might be the worst thing he's ever seen.

"Sometimes I really hate our lives."

"Yeah." That, at least, he can do. "Me too."

Sam pushes away from the car and begins brushing the snow from his arms. "We should go. We can stop in Reno."

Over the state line, the city and the ocean tucked away behind the mountains, the sun will rise over the desert and they'll hit the road again.

Dean takes the keys from his pocket, pulls the door open and exhales with the familiar creak. "Sure. Let's go."


End file.
